The English book Picasso. The Women in His Life: A Tribute (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de) sketches the life of ten women in the life of the famous Spanish artist. Pablo Picasso’s mother, whose maiden name he chose as his artist’s name, warned him when he wanted to marry the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova that he would remain married to painting throughout his life. The couple separated in 1935; the reason was Picasso’s young muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, who was soon deposed by Dora Maar. Following various separations, women like the young artist Françoise Gilot disappeared from Picasso’s canvases, but did not vanish entirely. This book pays tribute to all of them.
Olivier Widmaier Picasso, the grandson of Picasso and Marie-Thérèse Walte, writes at the end of his foreword to Picasso. The Women in His Life: A Tribute: “Show us the women and we’ll know who Picasso is!” In addition, he notes that his grandfather grew up in a family dominated by women: his mother and sisters. Picasso’s father went out to work as a drawing teacher, leaving his son to rule the roost as the adored and indulged little prince in his absence.
For Olivier Widmaier Picasso, it was natural that Picasso came of age both emotionally and sexually through his interactions with the young women of Barcelona’s red-light district, which is where the young art student found his first models and the inspiration for future masterpieces. The grandson adds that Picasso discovered Paris through and with the many women who found themselves unable to resist the charm and talent of the penniless, but gifted young Spaniard.
Olivier Widmaier Picasso writes (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de) that the way Picasso bonded with women is not unlike the way he bonded with his brushes and palette, which is to say absolutely. Women were of existential importance to him: no women, no works; and above all, no emotional ties, neither in the family, nor in love.
According to Marilyn McCully’s book entry on doña María Picasso López, Pablo’s mother had blind faith in her son. Although Pablo had left Spain and settled in France as a young man, he would keep in contact with his mother until her death in 1938. Until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he made several visits to Barcelona to see her. Their closeness reflected a similarity of vivacious, outgoing personalities as well as a strong physical resemblance. They shared a generally optimistic outlook on the opportunities that life offered. Throughout her life, doña María Picasso López wrote to her son at least once or twice a week.
María Picasso López was born in the working-class district of Málaga known as the Percheles in 1855. She was one of six daughters (two of whom died in infancy). Their father, in part to secure financial security for his family, left for Cuba, where he worked for a number of years, but died of yellow fever before he could return to his native Spain. His widow was left to cope with raising the family on her own. When the shares from a vineyard dwindled to nothing after the devastating outbreak of phylloxera in Spain in the late 19th c., they all did what they could to make ends meet.
When María Picasso López met José Ruiz Blasco, some 17 years her senior, she was happy to marry. In Andalusian fashion, she brought her mother and two unmarried sisters (Eladia and Eliodora) with her. The family settled into the bourgeois neighbourhood of the Plaza de la Merced. Pablo (b. 1881) and his two sisters, Lola (b. 1884) and Conchita (b. 1887), would soon join the predominantly female family. For most of the day, Pablo’s father occupied himself as an art restorer and spent his free time with his male friends at the local cafés.
Marilyn McCully notes that, when doña María’s second husband accepted a post at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in the Galician town of A Coruña in 1891, her life was turned upside down, leaving Pablo’s grandmother and two aunts behind. In A Coruña, Galego instead of Spanish was spoken by many locals. The city’s cold, rainy climate was very differnt from Andalusia. While the parents missed life in Málaga, the children, especially Pablo, greeted the move as an opportunity to experience a certain amount of independence.
When Pablo played with his young friends in the street, his protective mother would climb on top of the water closet and stand on tiptoes, so that she could observe their games. While playing in the street was normal for a boy of 10 or 11, she was fully aware that he was quickly achieving maturity as an artist, both as a student in the local school and with his father’s instruction. She realized that even from this young age, Pablo would soon break out of the confines of the family circle and make his way on his own. When they were living in A Coruña, the boy began to draw pretty much all the time. His sketchbooks include quickly recorded Galician scenes as well as portraits and studies of family members.
These are just a few details about Pablo Picasso and his mother before the family moved to Barcelona in September 1895, where doña María’s second husband took up a position at La Llotja, Barcelona’s Arts and Crafts School. Overall, the book Picasso. The Women in His Life: A Tribute contains portraits of 10 women of Pablo Picasso’s life: doña María Picasso Lopez, María Dolores Ruiz Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Fernande Olivier, Eva Gouel, Olga Chochlowa, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot and Jacqueline Roque.
Edited by Margrit Bernard: Picasso. The Women in His Life: A Tribute. With contributions by Marilyn McCully and Markus Müller, 184 pages, 90 color illustrations, 22 × 28 cm, hardcover. Order the English version from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
This book review is based on Picasso. The Women in His Life: A Tribute (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de). For a better reading, quotations and partial quotations in this review are not put between quotation marks.
Book review added on November 2, 2022 at 20:22 Paris time. Detail added at 20:01.
